"There are now ten hours until you will arrive at your destination. Please take the time to look at our wide selection of plant life from Universe One. Enjoy the rest of your trip on the Pleiadesian DeLux 14."

They had passed through the barrier to the Sixth Universe already, and were phasing through stars, planets, and galaxies on their way to the planet Hazel had dreamed of since she heard of it. Excitement and tension built in the cabin of the SuperNova as their destination loomed closer. Nredoza had woken up from her nap an hour earlier, and was watching a rather hilarious scene play out in front of her from her corner of the cabin.

Hazel sat in the seat of a pull-out table and bench, playing chess with her hologram using the projector, a hibiscus flower to her left. She had been attempting to learn how to play chess for the last five hours or so and failing miserably. Some soft 2000's alternative music playing lightly in the background, tying the whole environment together and making Hazel feel as if she was back on Earth, though much more technologically advanced.

"Check," her hologram spoke, the queen and a knight cornering Hazel's king.

Hazel stared at how the game was playing out in front of her and smashed her head into the table frustratedly. She was on the easiest setting for the game as well, which only added to Hazel's growing frustration.

"I think I'll stick with checkers next time," she muttered to herself, turning off the projector.

Nredoza smirked from the back of the ship, watching Hazel get angry at yet another failed game of chess.

"You can't finish such a simple game? Where I'm from, we have games much more complex that children can still play!" she shouted teasingly.

"Oh yeah? Then you try it, if you're so smart." Hazel responded, nearly breaking the table from slamming her hologram projector onto it.

Nredoza sat down, cracking her knuckles and stretching out her wings. The hologram came up, this time resembling Nredoza, its voice also sounding like a monotonous version of hers.

"Hey Holo, let's play chess, hard, to show Hazel just how easy it is," she said, much too confident.

"Chess, hard mode, coming right up, Nredoza Tridfi."

Oza winked at Hazel as the screen popped up. Within five minutes, the game ended, Nredoza getting beaten almost immediately when it comes to the average length of a game of chess.

"Karma slapped you right across the face, didn't it?"

Oza growled something about Hazel needing to shut her mouth if she wanted to live past sixteen, to which Hazel couldn't help but giggle a bit.

"It's not funny, okay?"

"Well, it sure seems like it to me, Miss Children-Can-Play-It!"

Hazel couldn't pull her cheesy grin off of her face. Perhaps her comradery with Nredoza had its flaws, especially because of the short time they had known each other, but in the end, she couldn't imagine her time stuck in the multiverse without her. In the few days they had been in each other's company, they had become surprisingly close. They had shared some memories, had a few laughs, fought a bit, as most new friends do, and Hazel felt as if she needed to give back to Nredoza, no matter how long it took for her to be able to, because of how much she had done for Hazel. She may not have known how important she had become in the new phase of Hazel's life, but that almost made their relationship even closer and better in some strange way.

Pacing around the ship, Nredoza was talking to her miniature hologram, trying to tell it jokes (which it obviously didn't have in its programmed responses) and getting it to do the weirdest things she could think of. Meanwhile, Hazel had found a sort of television with a DVD player. She paused the 2000's music and put in a disk with the label Hazel's First Year written on it in sharpie. Shaking a bit, she turned on the television and pressed play.